- Born
- Birth namePeter Dennis Blandford Townshend
- Nickname
- Big Nose
- Height5′ 11¾″ (1.82 m)
- Born in Chiswick, London just ten days after the German surrender in 1945, Townshend grows up in a typical middle-class home. His parents, Cliff and Betty Townshend, are both musicians, and as a child he accompanies them on dance band tours. Townshend starts playing guitar at 12. He goes to art school and, after several stints in local semi-professional bands, forms the rock group The Who in 1963 with singer Roger Daltrey, bass player John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon. The Who start out as the ultimate, violent anti-establishment band; they soon gain notoriety for ear-splitting live performances, smashing their equipment on stage and wrecking hotel rooms, leaving havoc everywhere they go. As the group's mastermind and main songwriter, Townshend later establishes himself as an eminent musical auteur and the thinking man's rock guitarist after penning such now legendary concept albums as "Tommy", the abandoned "Lifehouse" and "Quadrophenia", which combine the energy of rock'n'roll with the orchestral and thematic ambitions of opera. After Keith Moon's accidental death in 1978 and a few unconvincing farewell tours with new drummer Kenney Jones, The Who break up. The 80's find Townshend struggling with his identity as an aging rock godfather, fighting drug problems and increasing hearing troubles. In 1989, he roars back with a 25th anniversary tour of The Who, later a Broadway revival of "Tommy" (an eventual Tony winner) and several other ambitious musical, theater and film projects. Widely known as the windmilling, leaping about guitarist for The Who, Townshend is also a premier songwriter, accurately self-reflective lyricist and inspired multi-media entrepreneur. Both "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" were made into energetic films. The Kids Are Alright (1979), the band's biography movie, is interesting not only for The Who fans, but also from a filmmaker's point of view. Townsend's haunting songs have been used on the soundtrack of countless pictures. He stands out as one of rock music's most gifted and influential artists who has, despite being forever tied to the rebellious image of his youth, decided to somehow grow old with dignity.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christoph Stappert
- SpouseKaren Astley(May 20, 1968 - 2000) (divorced, 3 children)
- Smashes his guitars after great live performances
- "The Windmill" (strumming a guitar by swinging the whole extended arm in a circle)
- Revolutionised the use of Gibson SG guitars
- Powerslide (hitting a power chord while jumping and sliding across the stage on his knees)
- Often starts songs with a simple four chord riff
- When he was a young boy, his parents separated and left him with his maternal grandmother, who was clinically insane.
- The TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000) and its spin-offs CSI: Miami (2002) and CSI: NY (2004) all use songs by Townshend/The Who as their theme songs: "Who are you", "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley".
- Helped Eric Clapton kick his heroin addiction. To repay Townshend, Clapton agreed to appear in Tommy (1975).
- Kicked Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman off the stage at Woodstock when Hoffman interrupted The Who's performance to complain about the festival and to make a speech about imprisoned radical John Sinclair.
- The Who's 1969 album "Tommy" came third in Classic Rock Magazine's list of the 30 greatest concept albums of all time (March 2003).
- It's not the fact that I WAS brilliant, I AM brilliant.
- The bad part about growing older is I'm going bald. The good part is my nose seems to be getting shorter.
- [in 1968, about his rock opera "Tommy"] It's a very complex thing, and I don't know if I'm getting it across.
- [1979, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979] We're on the brink of something new. It will be similar to the invention of the American musical in the '30s. There will be a conceptualized, musical-video product and everyone's waiting for the first "Sergeant Pepper", if you like, on video-disc. The contemporary musical form is about to be discovered.
- [about Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were opening for The Who on a tour in the early '70s] They're really quite good, aren't they?
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